Customer Reviews

The Knight And The Rose (Berkley Sensation)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Overall, I was disappointed in this book. The plot was very intriguing. A medieval wife seeks deliverance from her abusive marriage. In an era where the man has all the rights, Johanna's options are limited. If she is to escape the cruelty of her husband, Sir Fulk, she must dare a dangerous scheme. If she can prove that she had contracted with another before she was betrothed to Sir Fulk, she may find her escape.

Enter Gervase. Forced into her scheme, he is torn between two duties... the rebel cause in which he is involved and that of the Lady Johanna. Reluctantly, he agrees to swear that he had plighted his troth to Johanna before she had married Sir Fulk. What follows is true love between the two.

This book is very well written. The plot is interesting. The historical facts are accurate. My disappointment lies in that the romance was dull and almost a second thought to the plot. I found this to be more of a historical novel with some romance as opposed to a historical romance. If you simply want to read a good historical novel, then this is a sure bet. But if you are clamoring for a true romance, then you may disappointed as I was.

I'm horrible at writing plot summaries, so I'll leave that to someone else. I'm a voracious reader and thus far this is the best medieval romance I've had the pleasure of reading. Nothing else comes close. The plot, romance, wit and wealth of characters are everything I could ask for. The nuances of daily life are so well woven into the story that if I didn't know better I would say the author actually lived in England during the 14th century. A keeper.

I quite enjoyed the first chapter or two of this book. But from then on it began to dawdle off downhill in the most tedious way, going on and on and on....

Aargh!

The main two characters in this book are symbolic of the cause of almost all the problems in the world right now: SILLY PEOPLE CONSTANTLY FIGHTING OVER NOTHING! I got sick of them really quickly. Honestly, I hate it when grown ups fight like three year olds. He was a trained fighter, she was a noblewoman...surely they should have had some sense of decorum and propriety, not to mention personal discipline, especially given that both their futures were on the line!

Also, the standard of writing in this book was definitely sub-par. The author seemed reluctant to use punctuation, and even more so to use it correctly...it wasn't uncommon for a sentence to stretch for five lines without even a comma in it to break it up. The writing was choppy, narrative skipped from character to character so much it was often difficult to know whose viewpoint you were seeing the story from, and the exchanges of dialogue between characters did not flow like a normal conversation would. (It was like a talkfest between self-obsessed bimbos who don't listen to each other.) The effort the writer went to in doing her historical research was wasted by the characters just not being believable in their settings. And the story just went on and on...450 pages in all. All the important stuff could have been said in 250 pages, and it would have made for a much better book that wasn't so cluttered by painful filler.

I can't believe this writer has won a writing award (for another book). Man, do they give those things away in cereal boxes or something? I expected better writing than this from an award winner, especially given that she's an Aussie like me. I like to think that we Australians can write pretty well...boy has this put a dent in my national pride!

Furthermore, there were logic gaps in the storyline. Like when one of the characters, Johanna, who has been married before, is somehow completely ignorant of marriage traditions such as banns...surely she would already know about all this from personal experience if she had gone through it before?

The fact that this was (very loosely) based on a real historical story intrigued me. In the hands of a competent writer it might have been absolutely wonderful. But in the hands of this writer...look, I've read worse books, but not too many of them. To put it flatly, this was a yawnfest. When books are good, I can't put them down, and inevitably read them within a day or two. But this took me MONTHS to get through. I kept putting it down so I could go off and read other, better books. I got through about forty or fifty other books before I finished this one! I just couldn't commit very much time to something I didn't particularly enjoy.

But the joke's on me. I bought another one of her books at the same time as I bought this one. So the writer has made money off me for both of those books regardless of whether or not she deserved to! Rats!

This is my first book by this author. I loved the dialogue, it was a little different - and bolder, I think than others. I thought Gervase/Geraint was a PERFECT hero. So handsome and intelligent, and strong and gentle. And since he was doing Johanna an enormous favor, one that would affect the rest of her life, if she was to have one, I don't understand why she complained and practically blamed Geraint for trying to help her! I could understand her revulsion to intimacy because of her evil husband, but she and Geraint smoothed through that just fine, so why was she so mean?

As soon as I finished this novel, I immediately went looking for more by the same author. This was truly an historical romance. Inspired by a real Medieval divorce case, the story is about Johanna, so abused by her cruel husband that she is ready to face death to escape. Fate sends her home to her mother, who blackmails a "captured" rebel by forcing him to play Joanna's first husband in a conspiracy to release Joanna from her hideous marriage. Trapped in a situation not of his making, Geraint finds himself falling in love with the icy Joanna, longing to melt her reserve, heal her psychic wounds and become her protector. Unfortunately, his real obligations lie elsewhere, with powerful men, and their paths must part. I confess that the added attraction in this novel was the link with history, which is skillfully woven into the story. Joanna and Geraint are both embroiled with the politics of real British history, and the sights, sounds and smells of an age long gone fill the pages. As the story races to its climax, involving the documented capital punishment of several nobles, we fear for the safety and future of the two star-crossed lovers. Isolde Martyn writes well; the trite cliches and often repeated formulas of so many Romances are noticeably and happily absent. The characters of both the lovers and the other individuals who people the story are well developed - Ms. Martyn has made history come alive and created a pair of passionate, believable lovers and I am eager to discover more of her work.

I really enjoyed this book. It progressed nicely and kept me turning the pages. The scenes aren't steamy particularly but I found that the author actually kept me engaged in the non romance parts of the story as well. I felt that Ms.Martyn had a strong grasp on the history of the time and the language. It was evident that this book was well researched!

The one minor detail that I took off half a star for was the ending of the book. I found that it progressed a little too quickly for my taste. I thought perhaps the author could have hurried the first part a bit more and drawn the second part out longer. It was action packed but a little too packed for me.

But overall, I highly recommend this for anyone interested in Medieval Romances and/or a good historical fiction. I will definatley be keeping it and re-reading it!

I found this book to be well written from a literary point of view. The dialog and secondary characters were delightful. And if you like a lot of historical facts this is the book for you. However, Joanna is such a snot and so ungratful that at times it is hard to get past a personal irritation toward her and enjoy the book. I would love to read more by this author if the rest of her heroiens are not so nasty.

This is my first book by this author. I couldn't get enough of the great dialogue! I can't say enough about the great characters, either. Gervaint/Gervase was one of the best heros ever. I could read it again, it's that good.

I just loved this book and went looking for more novels by Isolde Martyn once I had finished it. There are very few historical romances set in this era. I loved the very clear picture given depicting the way of life during this time.

Set against this interesting period are a range of diverse characters - particularly Gervase/Geraint who is all you could wish for in a desirable man (!), and, while Johanna is a complete wildcat without any appreciation for the efforts being made for her, I cut her character some slack for her behaviour in that any person who suffers extreme & continual physical & sexual abuse and neglect becomes irrational, bitter & suicidal (we still see it today), which is how Johanna is at the start of the novel, plus she is has to deal with being completely powerless as a woman in that era.

I felt Johanna's tirades were part of her re-action to her circumstances and she does gradually change as she re-connects with her family, (and Geraint ... !) so by the end of the novel her character softens as her circumstances change.

Additionally, the fact her mother, Johanna, Gervase/Geraint and the priest are undertaking a court proceeding to annul Johanna's marriage to the brut Sir Fulk by trying to prove a (non-existant) prior marriage between Johanna & Gervase/Geraint - requiring very confronting evidence given from Johanna in court, which would be a similar circumstance to a raped woman giving evidence in today's courts.

The controversialness of Geraint's family ... and the twist at the end, give the story added spice.

I really enjoyed the interweaving of the personal story of Johanna & Geraint (which is based on an actual case in this time) with the actual historical events of the time such as the deposing of Edward II and the battle of Bannockburn. There are many turns of events to keep your eyes glued to the page and the romance interwoven with the historical events of the time make a great book.

Lady Johanna FitzHenry is a beautiful willful young woman who has been married to her fathers' former companion in arms, a cruel, merciless brute of a man whose idea of getting her with child is to beat her savagely on a daily basis and to rape her nightly. Johanna and her mother devise a plan which will be her only legal escape from the marriage..to convince a man to swear that he had married her, before her forced marriage to her sadistic husband.
By chance, a young man stumbles on to Johannas' parents land, supposedly a scholar but actually a soldier fighting on the opposite side to the current regime. In reurn for help for him and his wounded comrade, Gervase de Laval agrees to the scheme and goes through an examination by a church court which agrees to annul the marriage. Following this, Johanna returns to her parents' home while Gervase follows his feudal lord into battle against the Scots. Four years later, he returns and, after many arguments and much wrangling, the happy pair are reunited.
Personally, I would have loved to have given this shrewish girl a good slap around the legs to put an end to her incessant screeching and bad mouthing of everyone in sight.Yes, she WAS treated shamefully and most cruelly, but as she never ceased her persistant goading of Gervase and was always ready with sarcastic remarks that could be heard all over the castle, I just wonder that he didn't rise off into the sunset forever !